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Thinking of deer Fei Fei

Chapter 2

Chen Yue Yang had not been so popular at the beginning.

Before his debut, he had been a trainee for 5 years. When he first entered the company at the age of fifteen, he looked like a dried beansprout. At that time, he had single eyelids, his nose was not so straight, and his chin was not so sharp.

He was among 20 other boys, not conspicuous at all.

During the interview, the interviewer asked him what was he good at. He said he was good at dancing. Half of those 20 boys were good at dancing, either jazz, Latin dance, or hip hop, and two also had additional training in ballet, and very able temperament as well.

In comparison, Chen Yue Yang’s dance was quite special. He danced folk dance.

But very few people knew this ethnic group’s folk dance – he danced Mongolian dance.

By the time he made his debut, his group was composed of 8 thin and good-looking boys, each had their own style and beauty. Chen Yue Yang was not the oldest, he couldn’t be the captain. He was not the youngest, he couldn’t be the maknae^0.5. When the marketing department discussed the marketing direction of their group, the first thing was to assign a “type” to each of them.

“Type”, this was a word scraped from the entertainment industry of South Korea, and it tried to find the direction that was good for each of them. For instance, there was the “martial artist type”, the “dancer type”, the “singer type”, the “rap type”. Chen Yue Yang thought this resembled a bit the first class meeting in elementary school. Each child was given a position so everyone would be happy.

The outcome was, all the “types” he liked were assigned, and the only one that remained was the “sexy type.”

From that day on, Chen Yue Yang was never fully dressed on the stage. His clothes, scrapped here or broken there. For his first appearance, the most awesome stylist let him wear a pair of jeans that perfectly showed the hems and waistband of his underpants.

When he first debuted, Chen Yue Yang wasn’t good at variety shows. In the programs, he was pushed to the back by the others every time. He was also unable to answer the words the host directed to him.

There was a time, in the program “You draw, I guess”, his teammate described and idiom for him to guess. That idiom was “to let one’s imagination run wild¹”. Chen Yue Yang guessed it and very excitedly said “thinking of deer Fei Fei²!”

The whole audience laughed. The host said, Aiya, I didn’t expect you couldn’t distinguish between R and L, ah, so cute.

He stood in the spotlight, all red from his exposed thighs to the tip of his ears.

But when he began to dance, his young and inexperienced feeling from just a moment ago vanished in a flash, just leaving a fully, unrestrained, and overflowing sexiness behind. With every little movement, every falling drop of sweat glittered brightly. Even if he was standing a bit far from the center, no one in the audience could take their eyes off his body.

As if he was a completely different person, bathed in starlight.

When the program was broadcasted, Chen Yue Yang had the most scenes. And “thinking of deer Fei Fei” also became the hottest phrase of the moment.

Letting your imagination run wild.

Thinking of deer Fei Fei.

Thinking of deer Fei Fei.

…Thinking of who?

From that moment on, the star-chasing fan, younger brother³ Fei Chang decided at once that his id would be ‘Deer Fei Fei’.

Fei Chang had been using that username for many years.

He watched in silence how Chen Yue Yang’s group disbanded, how he flew solo, how he was signed by the biggest management company, how he seized the best newcomer award, best creativity award, best mv award, best pop song award and so on. But Deer Fei Fei never spoke in the fan circle.

Deer Fei Fei’s main activity was in comic forums and game forums. He was proficient in using 2333⁴, 6666⁵, and all kinds of slang expressions, and unexpectedly he also used a lot of obscenities.

Last year, he participated in the China Comics Awards competition and submitted a fantasy adventure short comic he had spent half a year and all his drawing skills to draw.

Fei Chang didn’t think he was good at dancing or singing, and Deer Fei Fei did not think he was good at drawing comics.

Deer Fei Fei’s drawing style was something between The Powerpuff Girls and My Little Pony, and the characters resembled the Teletubbies with a similar narrative to Happy Tree Friends.

In the end, because it had a weird and unusual plot, he won the award to the best newcomer in the short comics category.

Although Fei Chang hadn’t debuted yet, he was very conscious. He didn’t attend the award ceremony and asked the organizing committee to send him the trophy instead.

However, he absolutely didn’t foresee that the organizing committee would publish online a list with the names of the winners, with not only the pseudonym but also the real name in brackets.

Award-winner in the short comic category: Deer Fei Fei (Fei Chang)

Just with this, he could still say it was someone with the same name as an excuse. The problem was, Deer Fei Fei’s account’s profile was filled with real information, such as birthday, blood group, height, body weight, school where he graduated. All these matched him without exception.

Not only had he written his zodiac sign, but he also had his rising sign⁶. The column for hobbies was filled with tarot card divination.

The manager looked up to the tall man in front of him and was certain that his cervical pain⁷ was relapsing. Otherwise, why would he feel dizzy and lacking oxygen?

The manager threw the comic in front of him to let him bring it back.

“Go back and get ready.”

Fei Chang’s deer eyes were filled with tears.

“Ready to pack my things and leave?”

“Ready to make your debut.”

“…???”

“I’ve arranged a variety show for you, a very popular outdoors program, this is a high starting point, you’ll nail it.”

Fei Chang had not yet responded.

The manager smacked him with a pack of tissues: “Blow your nose, this program was originally Chen Yue Yang’s job, he took the initiative to carry you with him, so don’t act like a fool.”

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Small warning, this gonna be a tad long.

So, the title of the novel is the sentence that Chen Yue Yang had mispronounced.

In the title 想鹿非非,  想 is to think or to miss (among other meanings); 鹿 is deer; and 非 (fēi) is abbreviation for Africa or incorrect, therefore the sentence could somehow also be interpreted as sth like ‘I think the deer is not wrong’.

Then we have our MC, 斐常 (Fěi  Cháng). As you might have noticed, the radical on top of the hanzi 斐 is exactly the same as our earlier hanzi 非. From what I’ve learned of Japanese (and Jap kanjis derive from Chinese hanzi so it looks like here it might also apply), kanjis many times are pronounced as one of the radicals that form the kanji. Here, although the pronunciation is not exactly the same, it is very similar. You can listen to these two hanzi pronunciation here.

And then we reach the point I wanted to bring attention to (though this maybe is just my wishful thinking). A way of showing endearment in Chinese is to repeat someone’s name twice. In this case, although I think for MC would usually be Chang Chang, Fei Fei might also be possible (actually ML has also called him like this later on but idk if it’s just to tease him using his own joke). In any case, since the pronunciation of 非非 (fēifēi) and 斐斐 (FěiFěi) is very similar, I like to think that when Chen Yue Yang said “(I’m) thinking of deer Fēi Fēi”, to Fei Chang it felt like ML was calling him lovingly, which shot a poisoned arrow straight to his kokoro and infected him with the love disease. Maybe this is sth that was intended by the author, or maybe this is just my useless and wishful musings. And well, it’s been repeatedly said that Fei Chang is a complete Bambi at heart, so the deer part is also checked.

Another thing I like of the title is that, with the translation to English, we can kinda think of ML saying he’s thinking of ‘dear’ Fei Fei instead of ‘deer’ Fei Fei, which only adds to MC’s heart melting over ML ❤ 

I know this was long, but the title is a key element in a novel and in this case, I thought it was interesting to discuss it. I am not so fond of the titles of many c-novels out there, I see some and just want to facewall, but for this one it was exciting to go through the different layers of the title and I guess I also wanted to share that. Don’t worry, in the future there won’t be such long comments after the chapter ^^ 

I’m sure there are people who know way more than this humble one about all this Chinese kanji stuff, so please don’t be shy and enlighten us in the comment section^^ (probably saying that all I wrote above is bs xd)

And now finally a short comment on the chapter: Wow, the author really went all out mixing these cartoons together, I’m too afraid to even imagine what the result would be…

I totally adored Teletubbies when I was a child, but now they look kinda creepy? And I don’t know if the younger ones know of Happy Tree Friends? Such a sweet-turned-bloody series, they banned it from the site we used to watch it, but I’m sure it’s still available out there… Thinking back, I’m stunned how my older brother showed it to the 8-year-old me… 

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Footnotes:

^{0.5: maknae is a Korean term used to refer to the youngest member in a (boy band) group. Later I’ve translated 担当 (dandang) as ‘type’ since I couldn’t find the equivalent in Korean, if anyone knows please do tell…}

^{1:想入非非 xiǎng-rù-fēi-fēi: to indulge in fantasy, let your imagination run wild.}

^{2:想鹿非非  xiǎng-lù-fēi-fēi. Lit. it means thinking of/missing deer Fei Fei (I’ll come back to the meaning at the end of the chapter). It only differs from the correct idiom in the pronunciation of the second word rù–>lù, which causes it to use a different kanji and completely changes the meaning of the sentence (actually making it quite senseless).}

^{3: In Chinese ‘younger/older brother/sister’ can be used with people you’re close with, similar to the Japanese onii/onee-san or Korean unni/oppa and the like. In this case, I think it just wants to emphasize that MC is younger. Also, when MC talks to ML (in prev. and later chapters), it usually uses a different kind of ‘older brother’, where it implies a junior/senior relationship between disciples (especially used in martial arts sects, but here applies to artists under the same agency).}

^{4: 233 is Chinese internet slang for laughing or LOL, it comes from the emoticon nº 233 that was very popular in a gamer forum. The more 3 you add at the end the more emphasis.}

This cutie here is said emoticon.

^{5: 6666: more Chinese internet slang; 6 is pronounced liù, which has a similar pronunciation to 流 (liú). 流 is to flow or move swiftly, so it’s used to indicate that someone is skillful. Therefore 6666 can be translated as smooth or awesome, well-played, show respect…}

^{6: The rising sign or ascendant is calculated according to your hour of birth, and represents your social personality, your outward style, how others perceive you…}

^{7: cervical spondylosis was used here, it’s an age-related deterioration of the spinal discs in the neck.}

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